


Going Too Fast, Coming Undone

by spuffyduds



Category: Canadian Actor RPF
Genre: 15000-25000 words, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:06:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set before the filming of "Hard Core Logo," when Callum was touring with the Headstones for research.  Written in frantic almost-daily chunks for the ds_aprilfools "write every day in April" challenge.  Disclaimer:  wildly, extravangantly untrue.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Going Too Fast, Coming Undone

**Author's Note:**

> Set before the filming of "Hard Core Logo," when Callum was touring with the Headstones for research. Written in frantic almost-daily chunks for the ds_aprilfools "write every day in April" challenge. Disclaimer: wildly, extravangantly untrue.

Reading, with Body Slams

Callum's gotten used to Hugh making almost everything into a contact sport. He hip-checked Callum out of his way when they were standing in line for a club bathroom, and then laughed and walked outside to piss anyway. He jostled Callum's elbow from behind when they were playing darts, and laughed even harder when the dart went into the fucking _ceiling_. The very first time they went to a diner together, and Callum was trying to have a serious conversation about Joe and Billy and where the movie was headed, he bummed a sheet of notebook paper off the kid in the next booth and folded up a paper football and started flicking it at Callum's head. And when Callum finally gave up, thought _fine, screw the serious artist conversation, let's play_, scored a touchdown and did a little arms-in-the-air dance on his vinyl seat--Hugh glared at him and shot the glass saltshaker across the table so hard it _bounced_ off Callum's breastbone and knocked a startled _huh_ out of him and then, yeah, Hugh laughed at him again.

At first Callum thought he was one of those guys who's just got to thump into everybody--touch-starved, or kind of a bully, or just a big stupid puppy. But he watched for a while, and Hugh wasn't like that with anybody else. And he really, really wasn't stupid.

So then he figured it was some kind of dominance game with just _him_—that he was coming in as the Pro Actor and that was pissing Hugh off, that Hugh was used to being the center of attention in the band and didn't like sharing it. But sometimes Hugh would ask him for characterization help or tips on getting his lines down fast, and then actually _try_ whatever Callum suggested, so it wasn't that either.

He can't suss it out for weeks. And even after all that he's totally unprepared when Hugh decides to make _reading_ into a fucking contact sport. During some long, long haul through hours of nowhere, Callum is stretched out on a low bus bunk reading a Swamp Thing collection (and yeah, the Alan Moore issues are genius, but what the hell, he kind of likes the stupid B-movie early ones too. "Muck-encrusted mockery of a man!" Jesus.) And Hugh walks by up the narrow bus aisle, not even looking at him, which is weird and should have tipped him off, and then just as he passes Callum he snatches the book out of his hands and _throws_ it down the aisle, and Callum just snaps, rolls off the bunk and tackles Hugh around the knees and brings him _down_. Hugh hits the metal floor kind of loudly and yelps, and Callum's glad, because by this point he's getting seriously pissed off, or—-seriously _something_, anyway, fucking _enough_ already. He lands on top of Hugh, all elbows and knees, as hard as he can, and the guys in the back of the bus are yelling and whooping, and Hugh snarls and rolls and flips Callum under him, flashes teeth and dives at him.

And Callum thinks, Jesus Christ, he's going to bite my fucking _ear_ off, I thought we were mostly _playing_ here, and he's been an actor way too long because his next thought is, shit, _that's_ gonna look awful onscreen. But Hugh just puts his mouth to Callum's ear and breathes hot, "Later, later, get you alone _later_." Stands up, walks over and gets the Swamp Thing, comes back and stands over Callum, drops it on his stomach and says, "Sorry. Cunt." Grins at him and walks back to laugh with the guys in the back, and Callum just lies there for a while on the cold bus floor, thinking, oh.

Exactly the Kind of Trouble That I Need

That night after the show it seems like it takes hours for all the other guys to clear out, to pick a groupie or two and just _go_. And Hugh chats up the girl and guy hangers-on as well, talks shit and laughs and waves his cigarette around, and Callum's just sitting against the wall because none of the groupies know who he is or what he's doing there, thank God. And he's starting to feel like an idiot because maybe when Hugh said "Later," what he meant was "Later I'll beat your fucking face in," who _knows_ with him.

Finally, though, the last fan clears out, and Hugh walks over, leans down and pulls Callum up by the collar of his jacket. And for a minute it's pretty much exactly what Callum was figuring it might be, rough and fast and a little too hard, slamming Callum up against the wall and bashing their mouths together, it's _safe._ And then Hugh pulls back and _looks_ at him, strokes with his thumb gently down the side of his cheek, and the last thought Callum has before he stops thinking at all is _oh, fuck, this could get dangerous._

Step and Pause and Step Again

Hugh leans back into him and now his mouth is slow and soft, he's brushing his lips all over Callum's face, kissing that spot just in front of his ear that makes Callum's fingers curl up hard. Working back to his mouth, and Hugh tastes like vodka and like life used to taste all the time, and everything up here is gentle and _sweet_ but his hips are _grinding_, almost _slamming_ into Callum's, nothing sweet and nothing soft down there, Jesus.

Callum grinds back and he can't tell whether he's breathing loud or moaning soft, he gets his hands into that ridiculous hair but it's crunchy and kind of sticky. Grabs Hugh's collar instead with one hand, the side of his shirt with another, pulls him in tighter until they've got no room to move, just rocking together and moaning or breathing together, and then there's a noise and Hugh scrambles away from him, is standing in the middle of the room by the time Trent gets the door open.

"The FUCK?!?" Hugh says. He's panting, and Callum stays leaning quiet against the wall, tries not to grin. Hugh throws his shoulders back, glares at Trent. "Heard of _knocking_, asshole?"

Trent shrugs, looks vaguely around the room. "Whatshername left her shoes. Red?"

Hugh digs a couple of red high heels out of a drift of beer bottles and throws them; Trent watches peacefully as they sail by his head. "Throw like a girl, man," Trent says.

"I will fuck you up the _ass_ with one of those _shoes_ like a girl if you don't get _out_ of here."

"That didn't even make _sense_," Trent says, and picks up the shoes and gets out.

Hugh looks back at Callum then, and Callum's chest feels weird but he makes himself flash the grin that he's figured out looks really confident, and says, "Kinda ruined the _mood_, there."

"Yeah," Hugh says. "It was really fuckin' _romantic,_ before." But he's not looking at Callum now, is looking at the door and wrapping his arms around himself.

Callum's not sure what Hugh's doing here, having second thoughts or getting embarrassed or maybe even a little scared. But he does get that it would be easy, right now, to laugh and bum a cigarette off Hugh and walk out the door with him, and they'd be fine, they'd forget this and finish up the movie and be _acquaintance_ kind of buddies, it would be fine, it would be plenty.

"Hey," Callum says softly. "Get back over here."

Nowhere to Go to Get What We Want

Hugh looks at him again then and grins--not an onstage grin, not a "fear me, I have teeth" grin; one Callum hasn't seen before. It makes him look about nine.

He gets back over there, and Callum hooks a belt loop with one finger, pulls him in, kisses him some more. Slow but speeding up and getting more--_necessary_, and Callum's starting to think that he could stand to lose some clothes, stretch out on the ratty couch. Which is a sign that he's maybe in serious trouble here--he hasn't once put bare skin on a nightclub couch since he got sober, because, Jesus. _Mystery_ sticky.

And then there's a polite little tap at the door and the club manager's voice saying, "Uh, guys? I need to close up? It's, like, four a.m.?"

Hugh knocks their foreheads together gently, says, "Fuck. I need a Fortress of Solitude."

"I don't wanna look at your equipment in the Arctic, Dillon."

"_Still_ fuckin' impressive," Hugh says. "C'mon."

He drags Callum out by a fistful of his shirt, past the blinking manager.

"Bus?" Callum says as they're hitting the door.

"Crowded." Hugh keeps tugging, around the corner, into an alley that smells like--an alley.

"_Kidding_ me," Callum says.

"What, you're too famous for alleys?" Hugh says, but he's leaning back against the bricks, tilting his head back, spreading his arms: come and get it.

"I'm too _pretty_ for alleys," Callum says, but there's no more "maybe" about the being in serious trouble here, because he's down on his knees and he's got his hand on Hugh's zipper and he's trying to be smooth but his hands are shaking, and something's soaking through the knees of his jeans, fuck, he _liked_ these jeans.

He manages, though, and gets Hugh's pants down a few inches and Hugh's already trying to climb down his throat when Callum hasn't even touched him yet, he's arching hips off the wall and grabbing Callum's hair, trying to force some contact.

"Slow down," Callum says.

"Make me," Hugh says, and Callum's not sure whether he meant that or not but he grabs Hugh's wrists anyway, pins them to the wall. Hugh shivers in the tight grip and says, "Oh fuck," so, yeah, he meant it.

Callum dips his head and licks, just tasting: sweat and smoke and nightclub and arousal, and then he's lost. Thought gone, the pain in his wet knees gone, nothing but Hugh's hot wrists in his clenched hands and Hugh's taste in and out of his mouth and Hugh whispering above him _yeah yeah yeah_.

Failing to Describe a Feeling

When Hugh comes he still keeps it quiet, just a long trembling "aaaahhhh" sound, and Callum's thinking, next time, next time we're gonna be somewhere he can be loud, I want to hear that _voice_, I want a next time. Fuck.

He stands up, rubs the back of his hand across his mouth, looks at Hugh: now what? Hugh pulls him in close, gets one hand tight in the back of his shirt and one hand working his zipper. And then they're both standing unzipped in a _alley_, and Callum is too _old_ for this kind of weird, but Hugh gets his hand going and that's good, up and down and tight and hard and no complaints. When Callum comes his knees flutter and he has to sag his weight into Hugh for a minute, head on his shoulder.

Hugh zips them both back up and then lifts up the hem of his t-shirt and kind of scrubs at Callum's sticky stomach with it. Which doesn't really do much for clean-up, but—-nice thought, anyway.

Hugh steps away and gives a "c'mon with" head-jerk at him, and they walk out of the alley, around the club, out into the lot where the bus is parked. Callum can feel a headache starting from the flickery way the bus shines under the buzzy yellowish parking-lot lights.

They climb onto the bus, and it looks like the groupies have taken off but it's still pretty full, the band and the driver and the roadies and sound guys, all crashed and snoring. The only open bunks are far apart, no way to even talk without yelling and waking people up.

Callum just stands there looking at the bunks for a minute, because--he's done sex and then falling asleep wrapped around each other; he's done sex and walking away in opposite directions, _fast_. Sex and then sleeping fifteen feet apart with eight guys in between? That's new. How the fuck does _that_ work?

He looks at Hugh and Hugh grins, shrugs, says, "Glamorous rock'n'roll lifestyle."

"Yeah," Callum says, scratches at the back of his head, says "Uh, goodnight," which sounds dumb but what the hell else is he gonna say?

Hugh surprises him by saying, "Sweet dreams," and then blinking like he kind of startled _himself_. Clears his throat and says, "Yeah," and heads off for another bunk.

Callum stretches out in his sticky clothes, reminds himself to took for a laundromat tomorrow in whateverthefuck town they're in. Tries to ignore his blossoming headache and listens to all the snores--random rhythms clashing with each other, until they all blur into surf and float him off to sleep.

Wake to Sleep

When he starts drifting slowly towards awake he fights it, because his head is killing him and it feels like the bed is moving, _fuck_. When he opens his eyes he's going to find his head circled with a clinking halo of empty bottles, isn't he? He can't believe he _did_ this to himself, after so long, damnit damnit _damnit_, he's just _hopeless_.

Then, somewhere close by, Hugh says, "You stirring, princess?" and things fall into place, and oh thank God it feels like the bed is moving because the _bed_ is moving, the bus is on the road. And his head is killing him because—he adds up all the hours of yesterday, a long ride and a long stretch of standing at the back of an overheated smoky club watching the band, dancing a little when he couldn't stand not to, and then the stuff after the show, and he's an idiot who's got to start remembering that you can get really fucking dehydrated even without alcohol.

He cracks open his eyelids, just a little, and Hugh's sitting on the bunk across the aisle with his black boots up on Callum's mattress, looking amused. "Didn't know you were such a lightweight," he says. "You had, what, _two_ root beers?"

"Need water," Callum says. "Lots of water. And aspirin."

And he's expecting "Get it your fuckin' self," but Hugh snorts and starts digging through a cooler, nice, but then _not_ nice because Hugh's _tossing_ the water bottles at him, one two three four five bottles just like that, Jesus, and they're bouncing off his stomach and they've still got ice dripping off their outsides. Callum yelps and sits up and then grabs his head and moans.

"Fucker," he says.

"You said you wanted a lot. Trent! Where's the aspirin?"

"First aid kit. In the bathroom."

Hugh kind of lurches into the bathroom because the bus is taking a curve, and Callum would laugh if he wasn't sure it would hurt. There's rattling and crashing and cussing, and then Hugh emerges and yells, "Who took the first aid kit?"

"Oh, sorry!" somebody calls from the back of the bus. Callum's pretty sure it's the roadie that he just thinks of as "Borg" because the guy wears a "You will be assimilated" t-shirt _every single day_; and yeah, he smells about like you'd expect.

"Chick last night wanted me to tie her up with the Ace bandage," Borg says.

"Jesus!" Hugh says. "The first aid kit is community property, you dink. Hand it over. And do bondage with a belt like everybody else."

"Sorry."

Hugh comes back up the aisle with the kit, hands over a couple aspirin, and opens one of the water bottles after Callum just kind of paws at the top of it and whimpers for a minute. Callum knocks back the aspirin and drains the water while Hugh watches him.

Callum closes his eyes and tries to think of something to say that doesn't sound completely stupid, and has just decided that, "Hey, when my head stops killing me you wanna have sex again?" is really, really not going to work, when Hugh puts a hand on his shoulder. Squeezes for a second, says, "Go back to sleep, you look like shit," and walks off down the aisle.

Callum pulls the covers over his head to block out some of the light and noise, and because he can't stop smiling.

Hazards of the Aftershow

When Callum wakes up again he feels almost human. He must have been out of it a long time, though, because it's getting dark, and the bus is stopped and empty—no, wait, there are noises _under_ a nearby bunk, and Trent crawls out with an amplifier cord.

"Hey," he says. "Keep crashing if you want to. It's just some dive in Regina."

"No, no, I wanna watch," Callum says, and gets his duffel bag out, starts looking for a toothbrush and a slightly less filthy shirt.

"S'fun to say, anyway," Trent says, and walks off the bus mumbling, "Dive in ReGIIIIna, dive in ReGIIIIna."

Callum spruces up as much as he can, remembers to drink a lot more water, and heads into the club.

It _is_ a dive—the men's room has an inch of he-hopes-it's-water on the floor, and from the smell, what blocked the toilet was maybe pieces of a _dead_ person. A couple of _months_ ago.

He gags and goes into the main room—Hugh and the guys are deep into setup, and Hugh's always really _on_ during this part, checking in with everybody that all their shit is working right, getting everybody pumped and worked up for the show--kind of cheerleading, except that he says "cunt" a lot. So Callum doesn't even try to catch his attention, and then the audience starts trickling in and the music starts up. And once they've started playing the venue doesn't matter, because it's one of those shows when everyone just--catches fire, _gets_ it, falls into a better groove with each other even than usual; it's almost perfect.

He's dancing at the back, and through the course of the show a couple different girls and one guy come up and start dancing with or almost _on_ him, and he smiles and cooperates a little but doesn't make any moves, and they eventually give up.

After the show, in the green room (and in this club he's thinking the green is from mildew) the band is getting mobbed like always, but he's noticing that for once Hugh isn't pulling anybody (or anybodies) onto his lap. He's making big gestures with his beer bottle that actually keep people a couple of feet _back_.

Callum grins a little, and slides down a wall to sit, and is just considering going back to the bus to read when a girl, looks about nineteen, plops down beside him and announces, "Hi, I'm Rhea, I _hate_ this shit."

"What, the band?"

"No, they're great, just--all this groping afterwards."

"So--why are you here?"

"To keep my stupid fucking _sister_ out of trouble," she says, and waves vaguely at the knot of groupies. "I wasn't here, she'd end up on the band bus. And wake up in another _province_. It has _happened_."

Callum snorts and starts telling her what _he's_ doing there, which he doesn't usually do because then for some reason people always ask, "Oh, would I have _seen_ you in anything?" and how the fuck would _he_ know? But Rhea doesn't do that, just nods and says "Huh," and "Cool."

He glances across at Hugh and now Hugh _does_ have a lapful, is looking at Callum over the head of some skinny blonde chick. Looks like Rhea on a starvation diet, and, maybe because of the diet, seems to be gnawing on Hugh's neck. Well, shit, okay, not like they had any kind of _arrangement_, fine.

He wrenches his attention back to Rhea, who's telling him now that she wants to be a sound engineer, she's saving up money, she's going to apply to this little mountain college in North Carolina.

"Uh, why?"

"Robert _Moog_ teaches there," she says, and Hugh's lapgirl is kind of dancing on him now and Hugh is giving Callum a serious glare over her swaying head.

"I mean, seriously, Moog," Rhea says, and Hugh's girl is pushing her hands up under his shirt and Hugh's grinning at him, and "_Invented_ the synthesizer, Jesus," and Hugh's eyelocked him and is licking his lips while the girl is starting to work on his _belt_ buckle, Christ.

And then it occurs to Callum that Hugh's been looking at _him_ every _time_ he glanced over there, and that the girl didn't land on his lap until after Callum started talking to Rhea, and that Hugh is a fucking moron.

He grins, says, "Hey, would that happen to be your sister undressing the lead singer?" and Rhea looks over, says, "Holy shit," and stands up. "Swear to God, I got all the brains and she got all the _hormones_," she says, and stomps over and peels the sister off Hugh and half-drags her out of the room, with some entertaining screeching from both of them.

Callum looks over at Hugh sitting there with his shirt hanging off him and his belt unbuckled, looking kind of confused, and gives him a long mean smile, and then stands up and walks out of the room.

He slouches by the door and counts off forty-seven seconds until Hugh comes out of it too. Hugh glares at him and starts to walk into the men's room and Callum says, "Oh, hell no."

Which is how they end up in the non-flooded women's room, and Callum finishes getting Hugh out of his clothes and Hugh gets some of Callum's off, gets his pants down far enough that their cocks touch, and Callum's leaning against Hugh, rubbing and grinding, and Hugh's backed up against the door holding it closed. It's fast and hard and a little painful, and a couple of times there's pounding on the door and Hugh yells "Out of order!" but God, it's good, with the friction and the hurt and yeah, when that voice is saying, "Cal, fuck, _fuck_," it's so _good_.

King of the Road

The next day on the bus Trent's trying to teach Callum to look halfway believable pretend-playing the guitar. He gave up on teaching him to actually play it after the first week, and...Trent's trying to be semi-kind, but Callum's thinking the faking it isn't going too well either. He's too distracted--Hugh's playing cards with the other guys in the back of the bus, and Callum just...feels like his brain leans toward the back every time he hears Hugh's voice. He's pretty much fucked, here.

"Jesus, you're wearing it halfway to your knees, who does that?" Trent says, and Callum breaks out laughing because he was assuming they were playing some sort of big manly poker game back there, but Hugh just yelled, "Go fish, fucker!"

He keeps trying, though, this is his _job_, and after a while Hugh walks up, says, "How's it going?" to Trent.

"My _grandmother_ fakes guitar better than this, man," Trent says.

"Your grandmother sucks dick better, too," Hugh says, grinning, and Callum flinches, but Trent says, "Yeah, she's got _medals_," so--just normal conversation, then.

He keeps plugging away, and shit, even faking it makes his fingertips hurt.

*************************************************************

They're supposed to be driving through the night, but about two a.m. the bus driver pulls onto the side of the road, out in the middle of lots and lots of nothing.

Callum's been sitting up near the front, restless; sleep not looking likely for a while. "Hey, what's up?" he says, and the bus driver tosses a map at him. "See if _you_ can figure out where the hell we are," he says.

"Professional," Callum says, but he spreads the map out on his lap, and the driver looks over his shoulder and points at some road they were _definitely_ on about an hour ago, so what the hell is _this_ one, and Callum makes some guesses and the driver says I _hope_ not, and finally the driver says, "Fuck, I think we drove completely onto some other map. I gotta get a smoke," and heads out the door.

"Sounds good," Trent says from a couple of rows back, and steps out. Callum follows after another minute of staring hopelessly at the map, and looks around for Trent, because he's out of cigarettes, maybe he can bum one. The driver's standing over in the tall grass, smoking and cussing, but Trent's just disappeared. And then Callum hears a clank and, oh, Trent's climbing the ladder up the side of the bus.

By the time Callum gets up there Trent's stretched out on the flat top, arms behind his head.

"Whatcha doing?" Callum says, and Trent takes the cigarette out of his mouth, waves it at the stars, says, "Wondering if they was made or just happened."

"Can't help you there," Callum says. "Bum a cigarette?"

He borrows Trent's lighter too, and stretches out beside him, head to feet. The metal of the bus is cold, but the stars are pretty great.

They smoke peaceably for a while, and then Trent says, "He's got a girlfriend, you know."

Callum works up a casual voice, says, "Who's got a girlfriend?"

"Don't be an asshole."

"Okay," Callum says. "Yeah, I knew that. So? I mean, I've got _four_."

"Not like _that_," Trent says. "Been together a long time. She's put up with a lot of shit. I _like_ her."

"Huh," Callum says, because he really can't think of anything else _to_ say to that, and then the bus driver yells, "Hey, I know where I went wrong!" and they scramble down the ladder and back into the bus.

Trent stops in the aisle and looks at Callum, opens his mouth, but Callum just brushes past him. Finds an empty bunk, and rolls to face the wall.

The Beat is Here but the Words are Gone

 

The next night when the guys load up for the show Callum just stays on the bus, because--it's starting to sound like he'd be fucking himself over good and hard, and probably someone else too, to keep on with this. And he's _seen_ the show, anyway, over and over, seen everything they've got to offer; he's doing this for research, he's not a _groupie_.

Hugh cuts him a look when he's getting off the bus, and Callum shrugs, pulls his duffel bag full of paperbacks out from under the bunk. "Seen it," he says, and Hugh flips him off but he's smiling--fuck, they're probably going to have to _talk_ at some point. That's always fun.

He settles in for the night--thank God for the used bookstore near his house, he's got about thirty-seven dirt-cheap Ed McBains. He makes it through one and a half before he realizes that he's not retaining the bad guy's name from one page to another in this one, so what's the point?

He tries to sleep but he can hear the bass from here, finds himself trying to work out which song it is, what Hugh would be singing when; trying to guess whether during the guitar solos he'd be spitting into the crowd or screaming, "I love you, babies!" at the audience. Probably both.

Spitting and screaming and getting seriously intimate with the mike, and leaning into Trent, and kissing any bandmate he can find, and grabbing the mike some more, and...fuck.

Callum curls around himself and jerks off miserably, rushes to the finish. He should maybe be trying to find a meeting next chance he gets--he hasn't slipped, hasn't had a drop in so long. But his sponsor's always telling him not to let his head go to bad neighborhoods, and angry jerking off while thinking about a heroin addict? That's a pretty dark alley.

Black on Black at 2 a.m.

 

Finally he drifts off, breathing in time to the whomp-whomp of the bass in the distance, and when he wakes up it's to Hugh's lips on his.

And he _forgets_ for a second, it's dark and he's groggy and stupid and he opens up, lets Hugh's tongue in and moans around it and reaches for him, and then everything hits.

He scoots away on the narrow bunk, and Hugh laughs softly, says, "Can't wait?" Gets up from where he's kneeling on the bus floor and stretches out on his side on the sliver of space that Callum just cleared. Shit.

"Aren't we about to get interrupted, here?" Callum says, because he really doesn't want to have this conversation now. Doesn't ever want to have it, but especially not right now when his brain is still half-asleep.

"Nah, the guys are stocked with beer and girls, they'll be a while," Hugh says. He leans into Callum's ear and half-sings, "We have some priiii-vate tii-iime." Callum feels a cold flare of goosebumps _everywhere_, the small of his back and the arches of his feet, and Hugh adds, "Thought maybe we could both get all the way naked at the same _time_, whaddya say?"

"No," Callum says. And he tries to come up with some way to explain it, but he can't--he _can't_ lie here with Hugh breathing in his ear and say, _no, because it's not important to you._ Because it's completely stupid and weird and pathetic that it's important to _him_, and because that could not sound any more like he was a twelve-year-old-girl with--glittery unicorn notebooks, and because Hugh would _laugh_ at him.

Hugh's moved on to nibbling at his neck now, murmuring "C'mon c'mon," and he needs to stop that. "_NO_," Callum says, shoves at him a little. "Just, NO. Get off me. Leave me alone," and, good, he managed to strip all the heat he's feeling out of his voice, make it bad-guy chilly.

Hugh pulls back, and Callum wishes he could see his face or maybe is glad he can't, and then Hugh says, softly, "Is it the beer-taste-thing? Is that a problem? Because--shit, I _can't_ give up everything at once. I've tried, and I just--I _can't_. But I could, you know, brush my teeth. Eat mints. Something."

Fuck, the kind is worse than the hot.

Callum pinches the bridge of his nose hard and says calmly into the dark, "No, it's just--it's been fun, but I'm done now, okay? I got some scripts I need to read over, I got other things to concentrate on, I need to be fleshing Billy out in my head a little, I don't need to get distracted. I need you to--just back off, just drop it. Hey, head back to the party, have fun."

Hugh is silent for a moment and then climbs out of the bunk but doesn't move away from it, just stands there over Callum, a blacker shape against the black. He's quiet some more and then says, "Fine. No problem, Hollywood. You got what you need? You got some _insight_ into your _character_? Fine," and the thump of his boots recedes down the metal aisle and out the door, and it's a long time before Callum gets back to sleep.

The Things That Are Loudest In My Head Are What I Have To Be Quiet About

It's really fucking hard to avoid someone on a _bus_.

They try, though, sidling around each other in the aisle when they pass, eyes down. Callum would really, really like to bolt, but he signed on for a longer stretch than this, and trying to come up with some story for Bruce that won't get one or both of them kicked off the movie is—well, he's an actor, not a writer.

After a couple of days of this—of not even going into the clubs because he doesn't need to watch Hugh during the show and sure as hell doesn't need to see what he's doing afterward—Callum is so ready to get out of this jail cell on wheels that a middle-of-nowhere truck stop looks like Las Vegas.

The rest of the guys scramble out of the bus together, yammering about breakfast platters, and Trent yells a "Hey, you coming?" at Callum. Trent's been friendly as ever the last couple of days, and Callum _gets_ it, gets that he was just protecting—Hugh or the girlfriend or maybe even Callum, and still, no. He does not want to hang out with Trent.

"Got some calls to make," he says, and heads for a phone booth far off at the edge of the parking lot. Quiet, alone, _not on the fucking bus._

It's an old-school one, full-size with doors and everything, and he shuts himself in, breathes in the relief of aloneness for a minute, then tries to decide which girlfriend to call and surprises himself by calling his agent.

Bebe picks up and he can _hear_ her taking a drag off her cigarette before she barks, "Talk." Three seconds into the conversation and he's already patting his pockets looking for his lighter; she always does that to him.

"Hey, it's Callum," he says. "How's L.A. treating you?"

"It's the lowest pit of hell, wouldn't live anywhere else, how are you, darling?"

"Good," he says. "Good. Anything happening?"

She rattles through papers for a minute and then spiels through two solid offers, several maybe-possiblies, a few tentative feelers and a couple "_that's_ never getting made's." And they're—mostly kind of gratifying.

"You're great," he says. "What would I do without you?"

"Sign on for 'Purple Toast,' apparently," she says. "Moron."

"I was _broke_," he says.

"Starving to death would have been better for your career."

"Nice."

"I _meant_ it as a sign of affection," she says, and shifts gears abruptly, "We need to get you to some premieres, you know. Get your picture taken. You don't photograph half-bad."

"Shit," he moans. "I _hate_ that stuff."

"You are without question the lousiest at self-promotion of all of my stable," she says, and Callum snorts at "stable." "Seriously," she adds, "is that some sort of Canadian thing?"

"_God_, no," he says. "You should meet the lead singer, guy on this upcoming movie. Never met a camera or a microphone he didn't fuck."

And he starts telling her all about Hugh and the voice and the spitting and the deranged _charisma_, and goes on way longer than he intended to. And when he finishes Bebe's actually quiet for a moment, and then says, "Darling?" in a way that completely freaks him out, because it's the first time she ever sounded like she _meant_ it and that's _scary_.

"What?"

"When you come to premieres?" she says, gently. "Bring a very pretty girl. Every time. I think that would be a good plan."

"Oh," he says. "Oh, yeah, okay. Bye."

He hangs up and leans his head against the side of the booth, and suddenly being alone in a glass box at the edge of nowhere doesn't feel that great anymore.

You Never Know Which Way It's Going to Bounce

The walk back to the bus from the phone booth seems like a lot longer than the walk _there_ was, and by the time he gets to the bus he's really _angry_ but he can't even figure out at what or why, just angry.

When he gets in he tries to sit down and read but he's going to lose it if he doesn't _move_, and he scrabbles through other people's luggage, fuck 'em all anyway, until he turns up a mini-basketball. Starts bouncing it off the wall and catching it, which he thinks he remembers from some prison movie, and how perfect is that?

After a long while measured in four hundred and seventeen _thunks_, the guys start trickling back from the truck stop, and Trent's the first up the stairs, and Callum fires the little basketball off hard and nails him in the _head_.

"Fuck, OW!" Trent says. "What was _that_ for?"

"Nothing," Callum says, smiles at him; number thirty-four, the serial-killer smile. Gets the basketball from where it landed and tosses it hand to hand, still smiling. Trent starts edging toward the back of the bus, looking wary. "Just playing," Callum says.

"Jesus, what's got into you? You get bad news or something?"

"Nah," Callum says. "Excellent, actually. Good career stuff," and boy is he sounding like an asshole actor but he can't _stop_. "Lots of offers. A kinda big-time series that's running in the States that I'll probably have to turn _down_."

"Shit, _why_?" Trent says, looking genuinely curious, relaxing a little, good, time to go in for the kill; but Callum doesn't even know what the kill _is_ until it comes out of his mouth, "It'd be stepping into somebody else's role. And I don't want to be a fucking _substitute_."

Trent flinches, and Callum smiles at him some more, and then something moves in the corner of his eye and shit, Hugh's standing on the bus stairs, just inside.

"Trent," Hugh says, in a very quiet voice Callum's never heard before and really doesn't like. "What'd you _do_?"

"Uh?" Trent says, and then Hugh's moving fast and gets a hand in his shirt and is half-dragging him off the bus, shoving past the rest of the guys filing on.

Everybody moves to the windows on that side, and Trent and Hugh are too far away to hear but there's a lot of violent gesturing going on and Hugh is up in his face.

Borg squeezes in next to Callum and Callum tries to breathe shallowly. "Man, they haven't done this in _weeks_!" Borg says happily. "I think they've been trying to behave in front of _you_, you know? Five on Dillon!"

"Fuck, nobody's taking that," one of the other roadies says. "He _head-butts_."

"Do they ever, uh, really hurt each other?" Callum says. Because maybe he should go out there.

"Oh yeah," Borg says. "Once, in Toronto, Trent actually bit out a piece of Dillon's _lung_."

"You are _so_ full of shit," the other roadie says, and Callum relaxes a little. And yeah, after a lot of waving and a lot of screaming that they can't translate from here, Hugh just whaps Trent on the side of the head once and heads back for the bus.

Callum opens one of his paperbacks to the middle before Hugh gets there, and tries to look intensely interested in whatever the fuck it's about.

Hugh just walks up to his seat and stands over him. And when Callum doesn't look up, after a minute Hugh leans over, gets in close, and in that same quiet voice, says, "Come outside with me. Now."

Maybe You Need to Do That But I Don't Need to Hear It

Callum follows him off the bus, trying to figure out what's about to happen, trying to remember how to throw a punch that's not a pulled stunt; trying to remember if he's ever thrown a real punch when he was sober.

But when they get a little distance from the bus (and yeah, everybody's looking out the windows on this side, and Callum hopes _somebody's_ betting on _him_)--when they get there Hugh just stands silent for a minute, rubs at his forehead, and then says, "Look, it's not like that."

"What's not like what?" Callum says. Calmly.

"Fuck, you're not going to believe me anyway, are you?"

"Probably not, no."

"Shit. Come on." Hugh grabs his sleeve and hauls, and they're headed for the phone booth again.

"What the hell--"

"Shut _up_ a minute. Just--I'll _show_ you."

When they get to the booth Hugh steps in and is rooting through his pockets with one hand and still hanging onto Callum with the other, and this is just stupid and embarrassing, and when Callum starts trying to yank out of his grip, Hugh drops coins all over the booth and says "GodDAMNit, Rennie!" He steps back out and then surprises the fuck out of Callum by suddenly shoving _him_ into the booth and crowding in again, and somehow managing to shut the accordian door behind them.

Callum's crammed into the corner and can't move, and he thinks if they both breathed deep at the same time they'd probably crack the glass. "Jesus, Hugh," he says. "This is a _truck stop_. You trying to get us beat to death?"

"They've seen worse."

"You guys have stopped here before, huh?"

"Shut UP, and don't GO anywhere," Hugh says, like he _could_, and Hugh gets some more coins out with a little elbow damage to Callum, drops them in and dials.

Ring and ring and someone picking up, and then Hugh's face--changes, lights up, and he says, "Hey baby."

Oh.

Hugh grins like a fool and says low and raspy, "I miss you too," and Callum can't get out, and can't stop hearing, and he closes his eyes, because, fuck, this is just _cruel_. And he's surprised. He was used to casual assholeishness, but he really hadn't thought Hugh had the _attention_ span for cruel.

It's Like That

He's slumping into the corner of the booth and trying to let Hugh's voice fade into a meaningless rumble and it's not working, Hugh is still standing an inch from Callum and breathing on him while he says sweet things to someone a thousand miles away. Callum's trying to figure out if there's any way he could just bail on the tour now, _today_, can he even _get_ anywhere from wherever the fuck they are? He'll tell Bruce he's got--lice, or something. He'll tell Bruce he can't do the movie.

And then Hugh says, "You know that actor guy I told you about, tagging along?"

Callum opens his eyes.

"Yeah, him," Hugh says. "He blew me."

Callum stops breathing, and the voice on the other end of the line says something that--he can't make out the words, but it sounds _amused_.

Hugh laughs, says, "'Course he's gorgeous. I got _taste_."

He talks for a little longer, bitching about road trips and road food and roadies, and Callum's breathing again and having a hard time keeping it _quiet_, suddenly feels like he's _got_ to be hearable on the other end of the line.

Hugh hangs up, and just looks at him.

"So, it's like that," Callum says.

"Yeah."

"Free pass."

"Yeah."

"Use it much?" Callum says, and somehow, without any room to move at all, Hugh manages to _swagger_.

"All the fucking _time_," he says, with a long slow smile.

Callum tries not to think about the way they're pressed up against each other, and the way Hugh smells like leather and cigarettes and waffles, and tries to remember that this doesn't change a damn thing. Because, great for you, buddy, that you have the world's most relaxed girlfriend, great for you that you're not _cheating_ on her, but that doesn't make me matter any more, probably makes me matter less. I'm a _free pass_, and, wait, something's not making sense.

"So," he says, "you do this all the time, what got Trent so whacked out?"

And Hugh stops smiling, and looks away, and Callum rides a hunch.

"You go back for seconds real often?" he says.

Hugh's really intensely staring out the side of the booth at a parking lot full of nothing, and says, "Not much." And Callum's getting pretty good at Hughspeak because he hears "never," loud and clear, and says, "Oh."

They just stand there for a minute, and then Callum says, "So, you maybe messing up something really _good_ here?"

Hugh's lips shape a quick no, but he doesn't make a sound, shakes himself, looks Callum in the eye again, says, "I don't know." He slides just the fingertips of one hand between Callum's shirt and his jeans, touching so lightly it tickles, his least pushy touch ever, and says, "I want to anyway."

And Callum would have walked on a "yes," and he hopes he would have been able to make himself walk on an easy lying "no," but an "I don't know and I want to anyway"--fuck.

Callum shoots one last glance at the parking lot--still empty, still safe, bus a long way off--and leans forward an inch, and he can't keep from making a little noise when their lips meet.

Refining the Process

They kiss for a minute, just softly, because apparently even Hugh isn't crazy enough to try to start anything major _here_. And then he yanks open the door of the booth and they head back toward the bus, space between them.

Callum's thinking it's gonna be a long silent march because God knows _he_ can't think of anything to say, and then Hugh says, "I was," clears his throat, "I was going crazy _looking_ at you the last couple of days, thinking I was never going to get to. Uh. Get to look all I wanted."

Callum almost says "Thank you," but that sounds way too fucked-up; says "I'm sorry," instead, but that's still too serious. He elbows Hugh and squeaks, "I'm not REEEEAAAALLLY sorry," at him. Hugh gives him a blank look.

"Pee-Wee Herman?" Callum says.

"What are you, _six_?"

"Man's a fucking genius."

"I'm supposed to be learning the _craft_ from you, refining my PROcess?" Hugh says, and the sides of his mouth are twitching and he makes it sound pompous as all hell. "And you say shit like THAT? I'm telling Bruce. 'Dear Director, my acting _men_tor made me watch Pee-Wee, and Willie Wonka--'"

"Willie Wonka," Callum says, "has the best goddamn acid trip scene of all time."

Hugh cracks up, and by the time they get to the bus and up the steps Callum's in a serious riff about no, really, that scene with the riverboat and "we're certainly not showing any signs that we are slowing" is fucking _scary_ and if you slow down the tape there's all this weird shit and a quick shot of a chicken getting its head chopped off, and maybe we could get Bruce to mix a quick chicken shot in with the goat thing as an homage? And Hugh's still laughing, and it lets Callum ignore all the curious looks they get from the guys on the bus.

The driver gives them an unignorable death glare, though, says, "Maybe if we're DONE with all our CONFERENCES, we could LEAVE?" and Hugh makes an ornate bow, says, "Certainly, be my fucking guest."

Callum stretches out on his bunk and Hugh, weirdly, lies down on the floor next to it, steals one of Callum's pillows, and they make lists of best kid movies and stupidest kid movies. After a while the sound engineer guy in the nearest occupied bunk starts snoring and Hugh slides his hand up under the blanket, touches his thumb to the side of Callum's wrist and just rubs at the bony part there, softly.

Callum keeps talking, but he's not sure he's making much sense anymore.

Finally they pull up at tonight's club and everyone starts packing up equipment. Hugh's bitching that he can't find his sweater.

"Man, it probably just finally finished disappearing," the sound engineer guy says. "S' a hole _shaped_ like a sweater."

Hugh throws some mike cords at him and says, "Go _work_," and Callum's poking under everybody's bunks looking for the stupid sweater. And then as soon as everyone but the two of them is off the bus, Hugh smirks at him, pulls the sweater out of his own suitcase and steps close.

"Leave the show a little early tonight," he says.

"Huh?"

"Get back here, strip, wait for me." He reaches under Callum's shirt, skims his fingers up the sides of his ribs. Leans in until his lips are brushing Callum's ear and says, "And I mean _wait_ for me, Cal. No touching."

He steps back and _smiles_, the _bastard_, and then heads down the stairs, and Callum hangs onto the edge of the bunk for a minute until he's sure he can walk.

Now Now Now

Callum stands at the back of the club, jitters in place, smokes cigarette after cigarette. The bass lines vibrate out of the floor and up his legs, and some dumb fuck spills a beer on his shirt early on and the smell is making him a little crazy. And Hugh's always _something_ onstage but tonight he's something _else_, and Callum closes his eyes and wonders what it would sound like if Hugh's mike actually had an orgasm.

Finally Hugh says, "Last song," and takes a long searching look around the room. Which is one reason Callum's back here; this is bad enough without eye contact. But then Hugh smiles and says "_NOW_," and the drums start up, and, great, Hugh doesn't even have to be able to _see_ him to fuck with his head, and he ought to just stay put, hang around for the afterparty, establish right up front that's he's not gonna--roll over for this kinda thing.

Except that by the time he finishes thinking that he's already halfway across the parking lot.

He sighs, and walks faster.

When he gets on the bus he just stands in the aisle for a minute, trying to pretend that he's actually debating whether to strip or not, but it's a pretty fucking pathetic attempt and he gives up quickly. It's a relief to get the beer-fumes shirt off, anyway.

He climbs onto his bunk and it feels really weird to just be stretched out naked in the big empty bus, but when he pulls the blanket up it's worse, because it slides across his dick every time his hips twitch and he can't seem to stop twitching them. Fuck.

He interlaces his fingers firmly behind his head because that's the only way he can keep from jacking off _right now_. He tries not to think about how fucked up it is that he's working so hard not to touch himself, but that just leaves him thinking about the gliding tickling blanket, and it won't _stop_ and it's not _enough_.

He's in hell for about sixty-seven years before he finally hears the bus door open.

Making Room

He tenses up for a second and then a voice says, "You there?" and it's Hugh, thank God.

"Took you long enough," Callum says, trying for normal but his voice doesn't have enough air in it; it sounds _leaky_.

"Yeah, well, three encores," Hugh says. There's a grinding thunk of him setting the door bar, and then he's shuffling slowly up the aisle in the dark, thumping into suitcases as he goes. "I can't help it if everybody _loves_ me," he says, and laughs, and then he's there, looming over Callum.

He's patting at himself, rustling his clothes, what is he doing? And then there's a _snikt_ and Callum blinks in the sudden flare of a lighter.

Hugh yanks the blanket down and says, "Jesus. You actually did it," and for a second Callum feels like the world's biggest idiot, but then the lighter goes out and Hugh thumps to his knees in the aisle, and he's got his mouth on Callum's collarbone, not kissing or even biting, just murmuring, "God, god, god," against his skin.

Callum reaches out, gets his hand tangled in what's left of the back of Hugh's sweater, pulls. Hugh scrambles up onto the bunk with him and Callum gets on his side, slides over as much as he can without bumping his ass into the window shade; there's no way they can get more than two inches from each other but that's okay, he is okay with that.

Hugh runs his hands up and down Callum's skin, ribs and ass and thigh, and his hands are _shaking_. "Hey," Callum says softly. "Hey," but he can't think of anything to follow that up with, doesn't know if he even needs to, and then it doesn't matter anyway because he can't talk, Hugh's kissing him.

Kissing him, getting one arm under his neck and one around his waist, throwing a leg over so his jeans rasp against Callum's skin, pulling him in and in and in and kissing him some more.

And this is stupid, they've got some time and some privacy and some naked for once, and Hugh hasn't taken off a damn thing, still has his _boots_ on even, and they're just kissing, something they could do standing up.

Callum moans and tangles his ankles up with Hugh's boots and sucks on Hugh's lower lip and this is so fucking stupid and he could do it forever.

Hugh pushes him onto his back then; there's some thumping into the window shades but they get rearranged, and Hugh slides down, gets his mouth on a nipple, and then he's sucking and licking really really gently there while he's rubbing himself _hard_ against Callum's crotch.

Callum tries to say, "Fuck," but just a little wispy _fffffff_ comes out.

Hugh moves over to the other nipple, which somehow makes his hip grind into Callum's cock in a way that's really _not_ good. Callum flails under him and yelps, and Hugh lifts up off him, says, "Sorry sorry sorry," and moves again in the dark; suddenly his mouth is on Callum's cock and, hey. Nice apology.

He's sucking just at the head, running his tongue in little circles, curling his hot hand loosely around the lower part. Callum says "Yes yes yes yes," and Hugh _stops_, lifts his head up and says, "Yes what?"

"_Bastard_," Callum says, and swats at his head. Hugh chuckles, a long low dirty laugh, a really _filthy_ laugh, and goes back to what he was doing, except now he's sucking lower and harder, moving his hand down to gently cup and tickle Callum's balls.

"I was already," Callum gasps, "I was so, I'm not gonna last not gonna last," and he doesn't, his hips lock up and he's pushing up off the bed and into Hugh's mouth and coming.

Hugh sucks him through it and then starts unzipping himself and Callum manages to say, "Gimme minute. Here. Fix you," but Hugh's leaning over him, kissing his neck and ears and making little choked noises and then he's rubbing his cock against Callum's stomach in time with the noises, faster faster until there's wet warm and he's still rocking, still making the sounds for a minute, finally stills.

He's got his head on Callum's shoulder and Callum strokes the back of his neck.

"Just thinking about you. Out here, like this. Fuck. Trent had to _shove_ me back on stage for the last encore," he says.

They lie there for a while, Hugh breathing on Callum's neck. Then he says, "I gotta--"

"Yeah," Callum says.

"Yeah." Hugh gets up and rattles the door unlocked. He comes back and Callum can hear him climbing into a nearby bunk, doing some unlacing, boots hitting the floor--one thump, two.

There's silence for a minute, and then Hugh says, "Fuck," gets back up and pads quietly over to Callum. Leans over him and misses at first, kisses an eyebrow; then trails down to his mouth and gives him a different kiss than before. Not pushing for anything, just a soft touch of lips, but not a quick one; leaves his warm mouth pressed there for a while, then stands up, says, "Goodnight," and goes back to his bunk.

Not the Same in Daylight

Callum learns Hugh really well over the next few nights. They're always in a rush; there's never time to linger or tease, never time to do anything they couldn't _stop_ quickly--but still. Shoving Hugh against the wall in a club's back room, gasping under him in a bus bunk, kissing him fast and desperate in an alley behind a really bad diner, Callum learns. That biting at Hugh's nipples gets a hitchy noise out of him that sounds hurt but isn't, because when Callum stops, lifts up, Hugh grabs him by the hair and pulls him back for more. That Hugh gets a sudden flush and an eyelash flutter just before he comes, every time. That his hands are rough and hard and pushy but he's got the sweetest fucking mouth.

They don't talk, though, don't say much of anything except _yeah_ and _now_ and _c'mon_ and _fuck, is that door locked_? They don't talk about their lives back home, or any other people, or the coming-up-soon-now end of the tour.

And the weird thing, the thing that makes no sense is that every minute they're not all over each other, they are both complete _assholes_. Not like the bicker-and-banter of earlier on--this is, it feels like they _mean_ it. And Callum's not even sure who started escalating, but he keeps telling Hugh that most of the time onstage charisma doesn't _translate_ to film--he actually _says_, "Hate to tell you, buddy, the transition doesn't usually work for _rockstars_." Jesus. And in front of other people Hugh never calls him anything but "Hollywood," now--"You got staff, Hollywood? You got people to pour your champagne and tie your tie?" Which is completely stupid because Hugh knows he's paycheck-to-paycheck on a _good_ month, and yeah, Callum knows Hugh shoots off sparks in front of a camera, but he can't--they can't seem to _stop_. Nobody sits near them on the bus anymore.

On the Chin

Finally, one afternoon, the bus suddenly starts clanking and smoking, and they end up pulled off to the side of the road, long stretches of nothing behind and in front of them, and the driver gets the hood up and starts up a pretty impressive string of cussing.

It's really stinking hot, and there's nowhere to go, and inside of a few minutes Callum and Hugh are in a _screaming_ argument about who's the bigger cunt, Joe or Billy. Which Callum knows is completely fucking pointless--because, yeah, in your own head you always want to work it out so that your character thinks _he's_ the good guy, no matter what he's doing. But there's no need for them to convince each _other_ their characters mean well; in fact the movie will probably make more sense if they, if their characters don't get each other at all. And, Jesus, as many rewrites as Noel's been doing, by the time they actually start filming they'll probably be Jerome and Bernard in a polka band, so why the fuck worry about it now?

And Callum suddenly _cannot_ be on this bus, will kill somebody if he's on this bus one minute more. He jerks his head at Hugh, says, "Come on," and heads out into the high grass of the roadside. Hugh follows him but he's looking wary, like he thinks Callum is going to punch him or kiss him, right out in the open.

And when Callum gets his fists up and starts dancing Hugh squares off at the ready, but Callum says, "You need practice _faking_ it, dumbass," and starts walking him through pulling a punch without being obvious, taking a pulled one without looking relieved. And it's helping a little, he's bleeding off some angry energy, but then he starts noticing that Hugh is a fucking natural at this--picks it up really quickly, relaxes into it--not like most guys the first time, scared to death they're gonna hurt somebody or get hurt.

Of _course_ he's a fucking natural. Of _course_ he is, and the last time Callum made any attempt at guitar fakery Trent said, "Uh, maybe you could just _move around_ a lot? Like, _away from the camera?_?" And the guys have piled out of the bus to watch, and Hugh's grinning, he _knows_ he's picking this up fast, he's _preening_, and Callum goes from calming down to insanely pissed off in about two seconds.

He's kind of surprised that he doesn't just punch Hugh. But what happens is, Hugh swings, and Callum doesn't move back _quite_ far enough, allows just the barest glancing contact, and then drops like a fucking rock. Eyes closed, legs buckled, a bit of a twist as he goes down, even lets his head bounce a little on the grass. An award-winning performance.

"Jesus!" Hugh says. "I didn't think I--_fuck_!" And he's down on the grass, patting at Callum's face, saying, "Cal, hey, fuck, sorry—"

Callum opens his eyes and grins at him, says, "_That's_ how you do it. Amateur."

And he expects Hugh to punch him, or at least body-slam him, or maybe even laugh. But Hugh just blinks at him for a second, still holding his face, and then looks really--_tired_, worn out in a way Callum's never seen, even after a show. Lets go of his face, and stands up, and walks silently through the crowd back to the bus.

All Kinds of Time

They get to the club late that night because the driver ended up having to jury-rig the engine with chewing gum and a bent coat hanger and one of Trent's tube socks, and they had to pull over for a while every time it started smoking again.

Callum didn't even try to talk to Hugh on the bus, and he doesn't go in for the show, just waits until it's got to be approaching encore time and heads for the door then. The bouncer looks him up and down and it suddenly hits him, cold in his stomach, that tonight he might not be on the list. But the bouncer looks at his doorlist and Callum's license and nods, sends him in.

He hangs around at the back of the club, and when the band wraps up and the lights come on Hugh catches his eye, but Hugh's expression is really--expressionless. Fuck. It's probably better Callum's screwed this up now instead of later, because probably it was only going to get worse, but--fuck.

He heads out into the alley behind the club, smokes a cigarette. Maybe Hugh will come out for one last--what would you even _call_ this? One last something.

And Hugh does, pokes his head out the back door and looks around, walks over.

"Hey," Callum says. "Sorry about. That was pretty fucking stupid. Sorry."

"Yeah," Hugh says, and comes closer, puts a hand against the wall next to Callum's head, and, like Callum was pretty much expecting, says, "I don't want to keep doing this, like this."

"Yeah, probably smart," Callum says. "Look, this is your gig, I'll just, you know, stay out of your way as much as I can, it's just a few days left."

Hugh moves his hand over to cup the back of Callum's neck, says, "I said like _this_, dumbass, pay _attention_. I can't--I want--I'm really fucking tired of alleys, and bathrooms, and the bus, and I'm really really fucking tired of not fucking you."

Callum can't tamp down the shiver that hits him, and he closes his eyes, leans his neck back into Hugh's hand, says, "Yeah."

Hugh moves closer, touches their foreheads together, says softly, "Motel? Tomorrow night? After the show?"

Hugh's warm smoky smell is all around him, and Callum--it's not just that he's _hard_, it's that _everything_ aches when he thinks about that, about privacy and hours of time. But he makes himself say, "Two of us disappearing the whole night, a little obvious, huh?"

"Don't really care," Hugh says.

"Maybe you should," Callum says, remembering Bebe. But Hugh just shrugs, leans in closer, gets his arms around behind Callum's back, and Callum does the same to him. And, weirdly, they don't _do_ anything, just stand like that, holding on, breathing into each other's necks, for a long time.

Water. Fall.

When they walk in the door Callum looks around, takes in the 1970's-avocado color scheme and the leak stains on the ceiling, says, "So, room service? Champagne and caviar later?"

"Piss off," Hugh says, sitting down on the bed and starting to work on his boots. "There wasn't a fucking Ritz in walking distance from the club, okay? Diva."

Callum snorts, watches him wrestle with a knot in his bootlaces, and lose, and finally pull out a pocketknife. Wants to go over and help, wants to kiss him, wants to say, "I wouldn't care if it was a _cave_, Dillon." Which would be a really stupid idea. And suddenly the thought of stripping with the bed waiting there, with Hugh sitting far away and not all over him, with lights and room to move and plenty of time, sounds just impossible. He's having this—he feels _shy_, of all the fucking stupid things.

"I'm gonna shower," he says.

He's not expecting much out of the shower, but to his surprise the water pressure and temperature are perfect. Meaning he's getting scalded and slammed up against the wall.

He's starting to relax a little when there's a cool breeze from somewhere, which turns out to be from Hugh climbing in with him.

"_Jesus_!" Hugh says when the water hits him, and cranks the hot down fast. "You have it like that all the time?"

"Yeah."

"How do you have any _skin_?"

"Maybe I'm just tougher than you," Callum says, and Hugh hip-checks him out of the stream of water to wet down his hair. Callum almost slips and falls. He kind of hopes Hugh doesn't have any grand plans for the shower, because he'd rather not bust his head open and die before they make it to the bed.

Hugh cleans up briskly and gets out, though--and grabs the only full-size towel; when Callum climbs out, dripping on the mat, Hugh grins at him and tosses him the hand towel.

"Asshole," Callum says, and then bursts out laughing, because he's never seen Hugh's mohawk all--_boneless_ like this before. It's all flopped over to one side of his head, like he was an old guy with half a combover.

Then he realizes that means he can get his _hands_ in it for once. And the shy is gone, the shy is history, they're standing way too far away from each other. Callum takes two steps, still dripping, leans his whole wet self up against Hugh. Gets a thick soft handful of hair and it's the perfect handle to tilt Hugh's head for a hard kiss, _perfect_.

Ragged Progress

They stumble into the bedroom, hanging on to each other, and Callum's still dripping, water from his hair running into his eyes, doesn't care. They fall on the bed, Hugh on top of him, and Hugh's kissing his mouth and neck and shoulders, pressing him down everywhere, there's all this _skin_.

"Yeah," Callum says, "Yeah yeah yeah go ahead," and he's not even sure what he's agreeing to, _anything_.

Hugh's grinding down into him now, and gets his lips next to Callum's ear, he fucking _knows_ that makes him crazy, and says, "God, I've been wanting to fuck you since the first time I saw you," and the voice and the words send some kind of almost-pain jolt down Callum's spine but he has to struggle not to laugh, too. Because the first time he saw Hugh, on the "Curtis' Charm" set, he thought, "_Asshole_," and it was a few days before he even modified it to, "Okay, _talented_ asshole." And now Hugh's rolling off him, _away_, bad, wrong, what?

He tries to say _bad_ and _wrong_ and _what_ all at once and comes out with something that sounds like a gargle, and Hugh says, "Wait a fucking second," scrabbles around in his clothes on the floor, comes back with lube and condoms. Points for him, because Callum hasn't been able to even _think_ since the alley, since Hugh said _motel_ and _tomorrow_.

"Yeah," he says, and Hugh's kissing him some more and then kneeling back to put a condom on, slicking up, and then--fuck, then landing on Callum and pulling Callum's legs up around his waist and just _going_ for it.

"Hey, whoa, no, wait!" Callum says, and Hugh stops but he's shuddering, says, "God, Cal, don't change your mind _now_."

"No no no," Callum says, "no, just—-you _done_ this before, right? How many? Just shoving in," and fuck, he's not even sure if he's making sense and he really _needs_ to make sense, "No, doesn't work, with me, no, need some work."

"I _have_," Hugh says, still shivering, and "A couple," and, "Was fine with them."

Callum's grabbing around on the covers for the lube, getting some in his hand, trying to find Hugh's hand to slick it up, and trying to find enough breath and brain to keep talking, because he wants it now now now, too, but it won't _work_, and "I haven't lately," he gasps, "Maybe they weren't out of practice, fuck, I don't know, maybe they were _professionals_, _here_," and he's found Hugh's hand, slicks it with his, says, "Finger. Start with one."

"Okay okay," Hugh says, his voice all high and rushed, and Callum can't figure out why they're both hurrying so hard when they've got all night for once, but he can't slow down either; when Hugh slides one finger in, Callum's rocking up off the bed, urging him in, _c'mon c'mon_.

Hugh goes at it fast and hard, that's good, but he doesn't push for anything else until Callum says _more_ and Callum's not sure himself if he means _more lube_ or _more fingers_ but that's okay because Hugh does both.

"_Ahh_," Callum says, and he's gone somewhere past rocking and on into bowing up off the bed with every stroke, because with two fingers Hugh's hitting that spot over and over and it feels like all his muscles are locking up every time, ankles to shoulders.

"You," Hugh says. "You look so. Jesus," and closes his eyes.

"Okay. Okay, now, slow, " Callum says, and Hugh moans and climbs back on him and pulls Callum's thighs up around him and _pushes_.

And Callum's been wondering how this would be because Hugh's pretty average length—-not that _Hugh_ would admit that—-but really fucking _thick_, and it turns out that what _looks_ like "really fucking thick" _feels_ like—-he can't even, he can't relax around it, he keeps trying to order himself to relax but it _hurts_ and his arms and legs are jittering around Hugh and he feels like one big cramp.

"Fuck!" he says, and Hugh takes that as an order and _moves_, and, "Wait wait wait, don't move, _God_," Callum says.

Hugh stops moving except for a shiver, and actually _whimpers_ into Callum's ear, and then says, "Please." Which is kind of stunning but doesn't really help, maybe makes it worse, and Callum's brain is still screaming at him to relax and he's still _not_, and then Hugh--his hips stay stock-still but he drops his head and bites the _hell_ out of Callum's shoulder. Probably just out of frustration but it's exactly the right thing, because all the tense and screaming goes _there_, and Callum's suddenly warm and liquid everywhere else, melting around Hugh, and says, "Ohhh move now."

Hugh moves, but slowly, and he lifts up, looks at Callum's face while he's doing it. And Callum gets that he's _checking_, making sure it's okay, and Callum just closes his eyes because he can't watch that.

Hugh speeds up, gradually at first and then not, and before long he's _slamming_ and Callum braces his arms above his head to keep from getting hammered into the headboard, and they're both making noises, synchronized harmonized barking, and Hugh gets a hand in between them and pulls at Callum's cock hard while he's fucking him hard and Callum loses it, comes all over his stomach and his chest and Hugh's hand. Hugh keeps going and Callum doesn't have any muscles left, can't lock his arms anymore, he's getting scootched up the bed and then his head is banging into the headboard and he should probably start caring about that, but then Hugh snarls and shudders and slumps down onto him, so he doesn't have to.

Too Much Light

Something's crushing him, he can't _breathe_, and for a wacked-out second there he's dreaming that the band bus is parked on his chest, but then he wakes up enough to realize that he conked out with Hugh still lying on him.

"Hey," he says, shoving, "Hey, get off, you weigh a million fucking pounds."

Hugh doesn't really wake up, makes a whuffly noise like a big dog, but he rolls off.

Callum gets up and turns off the lamps; leaves the bathroom light on, though, in case he wakes up in the middle of the night and doesn't know where he is. When he comes back to bed Hugh's got his arm flung over the spot on the covers where Callum was lying, and there's a blurry damp imprint of a body there, from him falling into bed still shower-wet. It looks like one of those outlines from a murder scene.

He looks at that for a while, then goes around to the other side of Hugh, curls up against his back and goes to sleep.

He wakes up in daylight; Hugh's already dressed and has a hand on his shoulder, shaking him.

"The hell?" Callum says. "You're always the last one up."

"I'm fucking _starving_," Hugh says. "Diner a couple of blocks down, come on."

Callum pulls on clothes and brushes his teeth, puts his toothbrush in his pocket and follows Hugh outside, rubbing his eyes.

It's too bright out, and he feels weird and raw and naked and can't think why, and then realizes that he's probably never--done this with a guy and then been out in public _with_ the guy right after, there was always some transition time in a car or something. But now Hugh's walking too close on the sidewalk and bumping into him a lot, and people are _looking_ at them, and he's suddenly really aware of the toothbrush in his pocket and feels like he's carrying a sign that says, "Hi, we're fags, please hit us."

"This is weird," he says. "You ever see 'Coal Miner's Daughter'?"

"Yeah."

"You know, when they go on their honeymoon, and she's twelve or something, and she won't leave the motel room after the first night because 'Everbody's gone know what we been doin'?'"

Hugh gives him a totally mocking sharky grin, says, "_Honeymoon_?"

"I just meant--fuck you, never mind."

"Nah, I get it," Hugh says and swats him in the side, and Callum's really been around Hugh way too long now because getting whacked in the ribs makes him feel better.

Chipped Coffee Mugs and Paper Napkins

When they get to the diner Hugh holds the door open for him and freaks him the hell out, but then when Callum's halfway through it Hugh _trips_ him. So that's okay, except that then Callum staggers right into the "Seat Yourself Anywhere" sign, and sort of rebounds off it with his feet still tangled and almost faceplants into the cleavage of a nearby waitress.

He grabs her by the shoulders and stops himself, and thank God she's not carrying a pot of coffee, but she deathglares him and he says "Sorry sorry sorry," and then Hugh gets him by the sleeve and pulls him over to a booth in the corner.

Hugh sits down and puts his hands over his face and _giggles_, the bastard, and then looks up totally stonefaced and says, "_Graceful_."

"Thanks. I feel much less noticeable now."

"Anytime."

"Dickweed," Callum says, and then a waitress comes up (a different one, hallelujah) to take their orders.

Callum orders coffee and an omelet and toast, and Hugh orders coffee and a giant stack of chocolate-chip pancakes with chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

"Jesus," Callum says, once the waitress leaves. "You want some _sugar_ with that?"

"Gotta keep up my strength," Hugh says, and grins at him, and then starts building little towers of butter packets. He's staring pretty intently at his towers when he says, "So, no show tonight, we could make an early night of it, head for another motel?"

Callum looks around quick, but they're far from any other customers, says, "Hey, can you afford to keep--I could--"

"Don't worry about it," Hugh says. "Turns out I have a shitload more money when I'm not scoring."

"Yeah." Callum says. "How's that, um, going?"

"It's still hell," Hugh says, "but it's actually--it's _less_ hell this time than when I've tried it before." He looks up from his towers, says, "I usually just get so fucking _bored_ on tours, you know? Whenever we're not playing--" and shrugs.

And Callum knows that's supposed to be a compliment but it's fucking terrifying, and he says, "I can't--I can't be in charge of, responsible for--I've got _me_ to--that's too much, Hugh."

Hugh flicks a tower over with one finger, says, "Nah, I didn't mean I was laying it all on you, it's just--it's been a good tour all 'round, you know? Good gigs, and the movie thing coming up." He grins, says, "You sound like Midori."

"Uh?" Callum says, because that's all he can manage.

"Yeah, she says if she was my babysitter I'd end up hating her inside of a week. 'S why she won't tour with me."

Smart girl, Callum thinks, even though he really, really doesn't want to, and he would very much like to stop talking about her, where is that fucking _waitress_? But he's stuck, so he smiles a big sunny perfect smile and says, "I figured she just didn't want to be around all the spitting."

Hugh laughs, says, "Hell, no, she's got no problem with that, she can spit farther than I can," and then thank God the waitress shows up with the coffee, so they can drink and not talk for a while.

Callum manages to stretch out drinking coffee and staring into his coffee and making little appreciative noises at his coffee until the food comes, and then all of a sudden he's starving too, spends a few minutes seriously attacking his omelet.

Finally Hugh says, "So, yes or no? You never said," but he's not looking up from his pancakes.

Callum's lost, here. "Yes or no _what_?"

"Tonight, again. I mean--" and he's looking everywhere _but_ at Callum now: pancakes, window, tabletop, his own hands. "I know it wasn't--" He bumps Callum's ankle with his under the table, and almost whispers to his plate, "I learn fast, though."

Callum blinks at him, because my God, Hugh really doesn't know the answer, and that's surprising and stupid and somehow it makes Callum's throat hurt, kind of closing up, so he almost whispers too, "Hey, yeah, of course, tonight."

High Contrast

Tonight's motel room is harvest-gold-themed instead of avocado, and there's this really weird painting over the bed. Hugh starts kissing him as soon as they walk in, before they even get the door closed all the way, and Callum's trying to relax into it but he keeps staring over Hugh's shoulder at the painting, trying to figure out if it's a incredibly badly done toucan with a striped bill or maybe an otter eating a beach ball.

"_What_?" Hugh finally says, when Callum breaks the kiss to look at the damn thing _again_ because it's making him crazy.

"Sorry, hang on," Callum says, and goes and grabs it off the wall and puts it in the bathtub.

"You are out of your fucking _mind_, you know that?" Hugh says when he comes back into the bedroom.

Callum steps up close and leans into Hugh's ear, because he _owes_ Hugh a few of these, and just barely breathes out, "Wanted to give you my _full_ attention," and Hugh hisses in a breath and his hips jerk.

Callum pulls back and gives him a slow smile, says, "Bed."

Hugh stumbles over, starts yanking at his bootlaces, but Callum says, "No, just lie down." Because he doesn't have the frantic _need_, like last night, to finally _do_ it already--he has a slow hot _want_ rising instead and he's gonna _play_.

Hugh gets stretched out on the bed and Callum climbs up, kneels between his feet and starts taking one of the boots off, slowly, working at the laces with one hand while he slides the other up the back of Hugh's calf, holds it lightly.

"Come _on_," Hugh says.

"No hurry," Callum says, eases one boot off, starts on the other.

"Well, I'd like to come _some_ fucking time tonight."

"Shutting up would increase your chances," Callum says, and Hugh shuts up.

Callum finishes with the boots and socks, tosses them off the bed, keeps just stroking ankles and calves for a while, as far up as he can reach in the skinny jeans. Finally he reaches up and unzips, and Hugh says, "_Yeah_," arches and starts sliding his jeans down his hips.

Callum doesn't even say anything, just pulls away and sits on the bed with his arms crossed, glaring.

"What? Fuck, don't stop," Hugh says.

"You wanna do this yourself, fine, be my guest, I'll watch," Callum says.

"The hell--okay, I get it, putting my hands away, see? Don't stop," Hugh says, and tucks his hands behind his head.

"Good boy," Callum says, and cuts off Hugh's probably-rude reply to that by leaning forward and tucking his face into the open vee of the jeans, just--nuzzling.

"Fuck!"

Callum breathes him in, shapes his mouth along Hugh's cock through his underwear, licks, gives him the faintest scrape of teeth. He does that for a long time, until the cotton is soaked through, and Hugh's keeping his hands away but he's rocking up desperately against Callum's face, moaning.

Callum finally takes pity, slides the jeans and underwear down, far enough that he can kneel on them and pin Hugh's legs. He curls himself down and brushes his lips up and down Hugh's cock, so softly.

"God god god," Hugh says, and he's thrashing his head side to side but it sure as hell isn't a no.

Callum runs his tongue up the length, licks gently at the slit, then takes just the head into his mouth, swirls his tongue around a little while he sucks.

"Aaaaah!" Hugh says. "Please. God. Please please please," and Callum would do pretty much anything to hear him say that, closes his eyes and shudders with the pleasure of hearing him say that.

He gets off the bed, ignoring the little broken sound Hugh makes, and then hunts through Hugh's clothes until he turns up the pocket full of supplies. Strips his own clothes off, watching Hugh watch him, and then climbs back onto the bed.

Hugh reaches for him and he sits back on his haunches, says, "Slow learner," and Hugh's so out of his mind that it takes him a minute to work through that, but finally Callum can see him getting it; he closes his eyes and says, "You. You just. Christ." But he stretches back out, puts his hands behind his head again.

Callum rolls the condom onto him and Hugh's hissing with every touch. Slicks him up, and then reaches back and starts opening himself up with his fingers, and it's awkward and he's kinda sore but Hugh's watching him with his eyes half-closed and breathing ragged, _worth_ it.

When he slides down onto Hugh he does it so, so slowly, takes just forever. A little bit because of the soreness but mostly because Hugh's shaking under him, saying, "Oh, oh, oh," over and over again.

Once he's all the way down he's still for a moment, adjusting, relaxing, and then leans forward, kisses Hugh on the mouth softly, pulls Hugh's hands out from under his head and says, "Okay."

And he expects things to speed up wildly, but Hugh just wraps arms around him and keeps the pace, rocks up as slowly as Callum rocks down. Callum's skin is buzzing everywhere and he can't think, his thoughts are just drifting, he's hot and his cock aches and he can't remember how long they've been doing this, maybe forever, just moving slowly against and with and in and out of each other. When Hugh gets a hand on him he sighs quietly and comes. And then he's not moving himself anymore, he's getting moved by Hugh's hips and Hugh's hands, dreamily up and down, until Hugh shudders in him and groans. Pulls him down closer, holds on harder, kisses his hair.

Rocket Man (burning out his fuse up here alone)

 

The next few days are blurry and surreal because Callum's hardly getting any sleep. He can't bear to waste time sleeping, because a countdown he's trying very hard not to hear has started in his head; it's a fucking rocket launch up there all the time--end of tour in T minus five days, four days, three.

And once the tour ends it's five weeks before they start shooting on the movie, and Hugh's going to be back with—Hugh's going to be _home_ all that time, so who knows what he'll want after that, if he wants anything at all.

He sure as hell wants it now. In one ugly motel room after another he fucks Callum, or curls up behind him and jerks him off slowly while he bites the back of his neck, or sucks him in the shower.

He seems to be trying not to hear the countdown just as hard as Callum is, though, because anytime Callum tries to say something that starts with, "So, after—" or "Once this is—" Hugh's up out of his bus seat and annoying Trent, or suddenly discovering that he needs to completely rework tonight's setlist. Or rolling away from Callum on the bed, heading for the shower. And when Callum tries to bring it up while they're walking to a motel one night (and bring up _what_, he's not sure exactly; he's kind of waiting for the middle of the sentence to find out what the middle's going to _be_), and all he's said is, "Hey," Hugh cracks up and points across the street at a _porn_ theater.

Callum says "No fucking _way_. " But Hugh won't let it go, dances around him on the sidewalk saying "Don't be a pussy" until he gives in. They end up sitting in a (mostly-empty, thank God) theater watching something called "Handymen."

The plot, if you could call it that, is this stacked girl getting very very friendly with a succession of repairmen. Which Callum figures was a good excuse for making the movie cheaper by just using the one house set, but it makes the lead character make no sense at _all_, because if your air conditioning and plumbing and every kitchen appliance you owned broke on the same damn _day_, you'd be _pissed_, not horny.

"You're _thinking_ about the movie, aren't you?" Hugh whispers.

"Something else I should be doing?" Callum whispers back, and Hugh grins, unzips him, gets a hand down his pants under cover of his popcorn bucket.

"You're gonna spill my popcorn."

"You _wanted_ to eat something that was cooked in a porn theater?"

"Point," Callum says, and shuts up, because the movie is making a whole lot more sense now that Hugh's matching his rhythm with the pumping hips of the plumber or the air conditioning repairman or maybe the guy who's fixing the toaster, he's lost track.

He comes all over the bottom of his popcorn bucket with a bitten-back moan, and he is definitely not eating any of it _now_. Rolls his head limply across the seat back to look at Hugh, and Hugh's watching him already, eyes wide, pupils huge in the near-dark, and Callum surprises himself by saying, "You gonna change anything at home?"

Hugh blinks, opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times, then says, "No."

"Okay."

"I," Hugh says softly. "There's not a lot that I just dead _know_. But I know that. I'm--sorry?"

"It's okay," Callum says. "I don't really need to see the end of this. Can we get to the motel?"

The List of Things You Can Have (with expiration date)

Callum can't ignore the countdown in his head any more after that, because tomorrow they'll hit Vancouver and meet up with a photographer friend of Bruce's for some publicity shots, and then tomorrow night is the last show; the day after that they all scatter. And that's--he gets now that that's probably it. He'd like to think they'll pick up again when the movie starts, but odds are that's just a pretty idea.

So when they get the motel-room door closed behind them he's the one who's rushing this time, desperate, yanking off Hugh's clothes and his, pulling Hugh into the shower with him.

Hugh's quiet, letting himself be moved around, just _looking_ at Callum. And that's freaking him out, so he kneels on the hard floor of the shower, takes Hugh's cock in his mouth--it gives him an excuse to close his eyes.

Hugh chants _fuck fuck fuck_ and thrusts into his mouth, and his knees feel like hell and water's running over his face and it's kind of hard to breathe, and when Hugh comes Callum doesn't want it to be over. Stays there licking at him until Hugh says, "Hey, hey, _ow_."

Hugh pulls him upright and then, weirdly, gets some shampoo in his hands and starts washing Callum's hair. He turns Callum around so his back's in the spray, then takes Callum's chin in his hand and tilts his head back to rinse.

He pulls back then, starts shampooing his own, and that's too fucking far away so Callum grabs the soap, starts washing Hugh all over, trying to get rid of the smell of porn-movie seats, the smell of someone who wants to go home.

By the time they climb out of the shower Hugh's half-hard again and Callum's _dying_, but he wants something different, something _his_. He herds Hugh to the bed with little ass-slaps that make him laugh, but then when Hugh stretches out on his back Callum shakes his head, rolls Hugh over.

"What?" Hugh says, and Callum grabs his hips, pulls him up onto hands and knees.

"Hey," Hugh says, "I don't, I _can't_\--"

"Shhh," Callum says, kneels between Hugh's legs, licks at his spine and down.

"Oh," Hugh says, and then "Oh _Christ_, Cal, what are you--" and after that it's just noises, a meaningless tumble of syllables out of his mouth. Callum licks, bites a little, pushes in just slightly with his tongue, and Hugh's _losing_ it the whole time, and when Callum finally reaches around he's barely touched Hugh's cock before Hugh's coming, moaning, collapsing onto his stomach.

Callum stretches out beside him, and he's still so fucking hard but he just wants to--look at Hugh, all that pale pale skin. Memorize him, maybe. He runs a hand over Hugh's ass, softly, and Hugh shivers, and climbs out of bed. Gets the condoms and lube, and Callum snorts, because that's pretty damn optimistic--no way Hugh's gonna be good for anything more for at least an hour or two.

Hugh puts them in Callum's hands, takes a loud deep breath, and rolls over to his hands and knees.

"Whoa," Callum says, "you don't need—"

"Shut up and fuck me."

Callum's brain shorts out, and by the time it's working again he's halfway through getting a condom on, and then he drops the lube twice and is having a hard time remembering to breathe.

He holds Hugh by one hip and starts rubbing the lube around with his fingers, not pushing in yet, just gently. And notices that Hugh's way too tense for someone who just came that hard. And...his fists are white-knuckled in the sheets. Fuck.

He drapes himself over Hugh's back, says softly in his ear, "No. First times suck, okay? And there's not--we don't have _time_ for it to get better."

"'S fine," Hugh mumbles into the pillow. "Go ahead." And he's _shivering_ under Callum, Jesus, he's _scared_. And offering anyway, and Callum hadn't even _asked_.

Callum drops his head, rests his forehead between Hugh's shoulder blades for a minute until he can talk again. "You are so fucking stupid," he says, wraps his arms around Hugh's ribs tight tight tight and starts moving, just sliding his slicked-up cock up and down against Hugh's back. He's so wired it doesn't take long.

After they lie in a heap for a while he staggers to get a cloth, cleans them both up some, falls back into bed. And usually when they sleep at all he's curled around Hugh's back or Hugh around his, but now Hugh pulls Callum's head onto his shoulder, snakes an arm under him. Which can't be comfortable, but Callum doesn't want to move.

I Was Up Above It, Now I'm Down In It

 

Callum wakes up the next morning to Hugh yelling "Fuck fuck fuck!"

"Whah?" he says.

"Overslept," Hugh says, pulling on clothes, throwing Callum's at him. "We gotta sprint to make Vancouver in time for the photo shoot thing."

"Call and reschedule."

"Nope," Hugh says, jamming his boots on unlaced. "Clean was part of my contract with Bruce, and--you start flaking on appointments and people _wonder_, you know?"

"Yeah, okay," Callum says, scrambles into his clothes, and they sort of jog-trot the blocks back to the bus. Hugh's panting by the time they get there. Yesterday, for a while, Callum was sure that on the movie shoot they'd be casual buddies, but now he doesn't know _what_ the fuck Hugh wants. However it works out, though, maybe he can nudge Hugh into a little better shape while they're filming, take him out running or something. Helps with staying clean, or at least it helps Callum.

They pile onto the bus, and Trent gives Hugh shit for running late, and then they're headed for Vancouver.

**********************************************************

The driver parks the bus at the club, and the two of them catch a taxi to the photographer's studio, make it with about three minutes to spare. When they walk in there's a fifty-something brush-cut woman holding the phone with her shoulder while she smokes with one hand and writes on a notepad with the other, and she says, "Yeah, they're on time. Yeah, I'll pass on the message. At least I think that's them." She looks up, says, "You Hugh and Calvin?", winces at a squawk from the phone, says, "_Callum_, fine."

"Yeah," Hugh says.

"Okay," she says into the phone. "Yeah, you get some rest. Bye," and hangs up.

She looks at her pad and says, "All right, I'm Aileen, and I'm supposed to tell you, number one, 'Noel decided to go with the subtext being pretty much text, so let's see that in the pictures.' That make sense to you guys?"

They nod.

"Well, you're ahead of me. And two, Bruce says, "Dillon, spit out your fucking gum."

Hugh laughs and finds a trash can.

She starts setting up backgrounds and lights, and Callum can feel himself relaxing, because in front of the camera is always hiding, is always safe because it's not _him_.

"Let's start with one of both of you," Aileen says, and Callum sits where she puts him; lets go and lets Billy take over.

And then Hugh, Joe, sits, drapes an arm around his shoulders, gets his face right up in Billy's and _looks_ at him, and it's a look from a dozen shitty motel rooms. And somewhere far away Aileen is saying, "Oh..._that_ subtext. Wow," and this is not hidden or safe or Billy at all, this is Callum _naked_ in front of the camera, in front of _everybody_.

He's doesn't know how he makes it through the rest of the shoot, is pretty sure he looks like he just took a gut-punch in every picture.

When they finally leave they just stand out on the street for a minute, fumbling in their pockets for cigarette packs, and Hugh's expression is--kind of stunned, too. Callum's not clear on whether that makes him feel better or worse.

And Callum's been thinking all this time that _he's_ sure he'd like to keep going, to keep this up during movie shooting, that it was pretty much Hugh's call yes or no. But now--Jesus, he's not sure he _can_ be Callum with Hugh at night and then be Billy with Joe in the daytime, with people _looking_ at them, too much too much.

It's chickenshit of him but he waits through a quiet cab ride, until they're climbing out and heading for the bus in the club parking lot, to say, "So, we both got a lot to do, the next few weeks, learning lines, catching back up on everything else from being gone."

"Yeah," Hugh says, and he looks like he knows what's coming, has a small tight smile.

"So maybe we should, you know, not be--taking up each other's time. Calling and shit."

Hugh stops walking, opens his mouth and then looks over at the bus; they're pretty damn close to it now, Callum can hear the bus driver yelling at Borg to stop smoking fucking clove cigarettes, what does he think he _is_, Belgian?

Hugh shrugs and says, "I'm _hurt_, Hollywood, I was gonna call you every morning to make sure our _outfits_ matched."

But Callum doesn't hear any real anger there, so he says, "Well, you've only got one fuckin' outfit, Hugh, all I gotta do is wear black with holes," and Hugh says, "Cunt," and elbows him in the side, and they get on the bus.

Going to Ground

That went--better than he expected. They're maybe going to be okay, stay buddies at least. And Callum sits and watches the guys load up for the show, yelling at each other and tossing guitars and mikes and tambourines, and keeps expecting that any second he's going to get out of his seat and help.

But he doesn't, he doesn't get up, and he's not okay, because the thought of going in to the show tonight, of watching Hugh, makes him feel heavy and slow and nailed down to his seat, and he's not getting up. Maybe after five weeks of recovery, of adding Hugh to the list of things he doesn't _do_ anymore, he'll be able to take it, but not tonight.

He waves Hugh over, and Hugh untangles himself from a knot of sound guys and light guys and mike stands, and sits down beside him.

"I don't think I'm gonna watch tonight," Callum says. "I just--sorry."

Hugh looks away, runs a hand along the shaved part of his head, says, "You're gonna leave while we're in there, aren't you?"

And Callum didn't know that until he heard it, but yeah, he is. "Sorry," he says again.

"Yeah," Hugh says. He turns toward Callum but now he's looking down, says, "Cal—" and Trent yells from the front of the bus, "Dillon, could you be on time for the goddamn mike check for _once_?"

Callum's expecting a screaming match but Hugh just says, "Trent? Give me a minute here?" and Trent says,"Oh. Uh, okay," and starts herding people off the bus. Which, nice thought, but goddamnit, Callum doesn't _want_ to be alone with Hugh right now, doesn't want to have a _talk_.

"Go on," he says. "Do what you need to do. I'm good. Please."

"Okay," Hugh says. Guys are still scrambling off the bus, milling around in the parking lot, and he just puts one warm hand on Callum's knee, squeezes, says, "Take care of yourself?"

"You too," Callum says, and Hugh walks off, and Callum starts throwing things into his duffel bag.

Home Again

Callum's almost falling-over tired when he lets himself in his apartment; it's quiet and dark and doesn't feel especially welcoming, but at least it doesn't have that nobody's-been-here-for-weeks smell, because he paid the teenage girl who lives downstairs to bring the mail in and open the windows once in a while.

He drops the duffle--fuck unpacking for tonight--and stumbles into the bedroom, stripping as he goes (and he hasn't done _that_ by himself for a while, and he's not thinking about that right now.) He flops onto the bed and wrinkles his nose, confused, because there's this weird, floral, _girly_ scent, and--"Aw, fuck," he says out loud. He'd been wondering if teen-girl had a little crush going--and she slept in his _bed_ while he was gone.

"That's just creepy," he says to the ceiling, and he's gonna have to get up and change the sheets before he can possibly go to sleep, and while he's thinking that he goes to sleep.

He doesn't wake up for fourteen hours, well into the afternoon. Tour's over now, everybody gone home.

"Right," he says, heads for the bathroom.

He thinks, for just a minute, about going to a diner, but--no. Cooks himself some eggs, makes coffee, settles down with the newest version of the HCL script: real life starting back up, plenty to do, gonna be a good few weeks. And he'll be able to incorporate lots of stuff from the tour into the part. Put it _all_ in the part, actually, clear it all out of his _life_, and when Hugh shows up at the shoot blissed out from five weeks of the World's Best Girlfriend it won't be a problem. They'll be good together, onscreen.

Except he can't _concentrate_. Noel has lots of handwritten corrections and additions that he can barely read, and for some damn reason has written "bongos bongos bongos" over and over in the margins of the first five pages, and he just can't seem to hang onto the words; stares at his lines and then looks up at the ceiling and tries to recite them, and all he can come up with are Headstones lyrics and the St. Swithin's Day speech.

"Fuck," he says, and when the phone rings he _grabs_ for it like an idiot, knocks his coffee over on the script.

"I'm calling for a Mr. Callum Rennie," a guy says, "with an offer for affordable life insurance, and—"

"NO," he says, and hangs up, and glares at his dripping script, which is making even less sense coffee-colored.

He stands up to get a towel, and the phone rings again. And when he picks it up and the same fakey-happy guy's voice says, "I'm calling for a Mr. Keith Rennie," he just loses it, because he _always_ ends up on these goddamn lists twice, and he tells fakey-happy guy to go fuck himself and his mother and his grandmother and his uncle, and slams the phone down. And then sits there shaking for a minute, because that was messed up; he's never _like_ that, never loses it at someone who's just trying to do his shitty job. That was messed up, and a drink would really _help_, a drink would be an _excellent_ idea, a bar's the only place in the world he could possibly stand to go right now, so he goes to the gym.

When he gets back he's almost trembling with tiredness because he worked himself into the fucking _ground_, but it's only about 10 p.m. and he's not sleepy, so he turns on some crap cop show and just lies on the couch, ignoring the plot and watching the car chases.

When the phone rings again he makes himself pick it up _slowly_, and when it turns out to be a chirpy woman who says, "Mr. Callum Rennie? Could I interest you in extremely affordable double glazing?" he says, carefully, politely, "No thank you. And if you look down your list a few names you'll see a Keith Rennie, and that's still me, so don't call me again, but good luck with everybody else, okay?"

He hangs up gently, and turns back toward the show--red lights and blue lights and sirens. And it fucking. Rings. Again.

He jumps up off the couch, snatches the phone and yells into it, "What the fuck is _wrong_ with you? Are you a fucking idiot? What did I just _tell_ you? I don't want double glazing! I don't want single glazing! I don't even know what the fuck glazing _is_!"

"I think it's got something to do with windows," Hugh says.

"Oh," Callum says. "Uh. Hi," and waits for Hugh to give him some snarky bullshit reason for calling, that he needed some Acting Tips from the Serious Goddamn Artist or something.

And Hugh says, "I miss you."

Callum's knees give and he drops back onto the couch, because--that's really effective. Total fucking surrender as the best possible offense, he's going to have to _remember_ that one, and he says, "I miss you too."

 

\--END--


End file.
